Powell: U.S. made 'serious mistakes' in Iraq

AP ^ | April 9 2006 | MONIFA THOMAS

[jmc1969]

Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on Saturday said the United States has made "serious mistakes" during the Iraq war that have led to the rising violence the country now faces.

"We made some serious mistakes in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Baghdad," Powell told a crowd of thousands at the McCormick Place conference. "We didn't have enough troops on the ground. We didn't impose our will. And as a result, an insurgency got started, and . . . it got out of control."

Now, American troops must "stick with the people of Iraq" until order is restored, he said.

Powell, a retired four-star general, served as secretary of state under Bush from 2001 until 2005.

His remarks came a day after suicide bombers hit a Shiite mosque in Baghdad, killing more than 80.

[Blackirish]

Everybody has a plan till the 1st punch is thrown.

[Tailgunner Joe]

At least he's not saying it was a mistake to disband the Iraqi army like some numbskulls.

[Erik Latranyi]

Colin Powell only cares about himself and his image in the press.

He wants to appear so wise.

[mkjessup]

Memo

To: General Colin Powell (USA, Retired)
From: President George W. Bush (you remember me don't cha?)

Let this serve as notice that you are now returned to active duty, your smart ass is assigned to Baghdad, now go over there and fix all these problems you keep seeing, ok?

Enjoy your flight General, and stay in touch!

Regards,

George

[pointsal]

One of those mistakes was having Powell on board.

[Terpfen]

The mistake was getting rid of Jay Garner and putting Bremer in charge.

[DustyMoment]

Oh, fer cryin' out loud!!! I'm sick of this mea culpa crapola!! It's WAR, for God's sake!! EVERY war doesn't go exactly according to plan. All of the breast beaters need to get over it and accept that errors happen in war and move on.

[Sometimes A River]

Captain Obvious!

[Sometimes A River]

What did he do/didn't do?

[ex-snook]

Hey Powell the army knows how to break things. Fixing them is above their pay grade.

[Sometimes A River]

Both Perleman and Wolfowitz are out of the positions they had when we went to war with Iraq.

Ie, fired.

[Mr. Mojo]

"We didn't impose our will. And as a result, an insurgency got started, and . . . it got out of control." - Powell

But General, the imposition of American will is no way to "win hearts and minds."

....although it is the only way to win.

[the invisib1e hand]

is he manifesting presidential aspirations?

[babygene]

"One of those mistakes was having Powell on board."

I was about to say the same thing...

[FlingWingFlyer]

The U.S. made "serious mistakes" in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, WW I, WW II, Korea, Vietnam and the first Persian Gulf War. So what's your point Colin? Whining and crying that it's too tough to do never makes things any better. You play the cards you're dealt and you deal with it. Americans never used to give up until the drug-induced 60s happened. It was the boomer babies who decided that nothing was worth sweat, pain and blood. If it can't be done quickly with as little pain as possible, the boomer babies will tell you that it isn't worth doing.

[Mr. Mojo]

Yep, they're warriors, not policemen or social workers.

[68skylark]

The State Department made much bigger mistakes than DoD.

[Berlin_Freeper]

"We made some serious mistakes in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Baghdad,"


Bush is reelected without Powell. So who is "we"?

[68skylark]

The single biggest, worst mistake of the war was failing to get Turkey on board, so the 4th ID could enter Iraq from the north.

That was Powell's responsibility and he blew it.

[Shermy]

Rumsfeld was the one to make the bad military decisions.

He's still around.

[em2vn]

President Bush the elder and President Bush the younger made a mistake trusting this hump in the first place.

[DAC22]

"We didn't impose our will"


Humm, just what is he saying here? We should have brutalize and oppress the masses like the guy we got rid of? The fair General seems to have lost his mind. But I guess toeing the line doesn't get the big speaking fees.

[weegee]

The war turned when the US media blew the Abu Ghraib trial out of propotion. The men (who leaked the photos, by the way) were already under investigation.

The NY Times put it on the front page for over 30 continuous days.

Terrorists flooded into Iraq. The media's irresponsible behavior and the open borders created the terrorist "insurgency" we see in Iraq today.

More troops in the cities would not have prevented this.

The media is partnered with our enemy (inluding Time Magazine reporters who embedded with the enemy).

[Marine_Uncle]

One must only remind themselves who insisted to end the ground and air actions in Operation Desert Storm, as our guys where decimating those tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers fleeing.
I rest my case.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

President Bush the elder and President Bush the younger made a mistake trusting this hump in the first place.

Yep, all for the sake of diversity and obtaining maybe 3 more black votes.

Powell has all the leadership of a caboose.

[DCPatriot]

Excuse me, Mr. Powell.

Didn't you have any clue that something was amiss when you were allowed to march right into Baghdad with virtually no resistance?

Saddam's army and his Republican Guard were allowed to dissolve back into the population and voila...an insurgency was born.

It ain't no damned insurgency.

They're just dressed as insurgents. They're regular army and they should have been arrested and imprisoned or rendered incapable of inflicting this war on the American soldier.

[TexasTransplant]

The Headline, not the story, will be the story come Monday morning.

TT

[hosepipe]

[ Powell: U.S. made 'serious mistakes' in Iraq ]

Bush made a serious mistake in choosing Powell..

[DannyTN]

The insurgency is being fueled by Iran and Syria.

No amount of troops on the ground was going to change that unless we completely sealed the borders. Which I don't understand why we didn't do. I think it is physically possible.

[nothingnew]

Shut up Colon Colin. Go join carter on a peanut butter tasting tour.

FMCDH(BITS)

[llortami]

Yes, Abu Ghraib was the media's fault.

Foreign terrorists flooding into Iraq was the media's fault also.

Whenever anyone points out mistakes that occurred or criticizes the administration, just blame the media.

/sarcasm off

[tcrlaf]

We made LOTS of mistakes in Iraq, with the primary, and most costly one being letting screaming Lib/Dems compromise doing THE RIGHT THINGS straight out of the box....

Being PC NEVER works in a War Zone, and letting the resistence fester in the Mosques we were afraid to enter has killed a lot of folks......

[canuck_conservative]

"The mistake was getting rid of Jay Garner and putting Bremer in charge."

Can you elaborate on that?

[nothingnew]

Everybody has a plan till the 1st punch is thrown.

Ain't that the truth.

Go suck your thumb coloncolin, and try to dry away the tears..

FMCDH(BITS)

[Terpfen]

Garner was doing a pretty decent job when he was axed out of nowhere. Bremer by contrast screwed up--didn't deal with al-Sadr, disbanded the Iraqi military, etc.

[nothingnew]

You're kind of short sighted, aren't you?

FMCDH(BITS)

[Red6]

It's all about expectation management.

It's not even been a whole three years after Saddam is ousted. Today people just think that overnight everything will be milk and honey. Even in the Balkans it took a long time and troops are STILL there. The only difference is that since the Germans/French were part of the operation (In fact the Germans were one of the major political forces behind it) you don't get the foreign politician/media riding the issue as hard. Reference Iraq the French, German or Belgian will quickly bad mouth.

Since most have no concept of history they will hardily know that Germany took (7) seven YEARS before they had a viable Army and even just a currency! We still had guerrillas who we were hanging in 1948!

The overwhelming problem with Iraq is that the American populace has no measure of success. The MSM is always on the look for a new big seller which they can package to the audience like Dan Rather did repeatedly. Most never served in the armed forces. Most have no comprehension of history and can’t place any significance or value in certain events. They don’t even know what “right” looks like.

Example: In history the invasion of Poland is considered a marvel of modern warfare. Fast and with low casualties this invasion in 1939 is considered by many historians as an example of an overwhelming victory for the Germans. It is even taught that way in US schools. In 2003 while the US was attacking our media reported of us being “bogged down”, “bloody battles’ and and and.

Lets put this in perspective We attacked a nation on the other side of the PLANET. Our logistical trains reached around the world. The war was being Commanded from yet another place via satellite communications and links. Germany took 4 weeks, we took 3. Germany lost 20,000 we lost less than 300. Warsaw is small compared to Baghdad. 122F temperatures are what the US armed forces had to contend with in the shade! The enemy knew we were coming and from where. No surprise like with Poland. We were executing this war in a coalition where many cultures, religions and languages are part of. Vast open terrain, few places to truly hide armored columns etc made detection easy…….. the list goes on. Yet while the war was going on, not even after 1 WEEK, already there was news of “quagmires” and “failure” etc.

The American public does not even comprehend the degree of unprecedented, overwhelming success we had. In fact, never before in all of mankind's history has a war ever been fought on such a large scale so quickly with such large cities involved and such massive logistical requirements that needed to be met. Iraq 2003 already belongs for this reason alone in the history book as a unprecedented success.

How do we define success and failure?

When the insurgency began quickly did the MSM state that such a fight had never been won. Factually wrong since we had won two of them and we are pretty much the only ones who ever have. But the point is that the MSM quickly created it’s own news, if you so want to call it. Define success? Our casualties in Iraq are dropping and are at near all time lows where they have stayed for some time now. Iraqis are policing themselves more today. They have a currency, Army, Police and other vital services and institutions already in place. It’s only been THREE years! Of course for the opportunistic anti war pundit nothing will be good enough nor fast enough. They will misrepresent the facts, take things out of context, look at Iraq in a vacuum where there is no greater Islamist threat and the threat from Saddam must completely be ignored. Comparing Iraq with a factual comparisons with what is defined as a military success in history may it be the invasion of Koenl or Poland sheds a light onto the story that is a bit different than the ever new scandal seeking MSM where everything negative equates to a good selling story.

The main issue we face today is that the public simply does not know what success and failure is. If Dan Rather says its a failure and he's wearing a good suite, speaks with his slow and deep voice off a teleprompter good sounding wordsmithed little speeches, the public will accept this as the ground truth. Bush's word has no more weight than that of some flunky Michael Moore who actually largely shaped the perception of what is going on there with his film Fahrenheit 9-11. The people don't know who to believe and have no measure of success!

[canuck_conservative]

"Garner was doing a pretty decent job when he was axed out of nowhere."

So why did it happen, then?

........


"No amount of troops on the ground was going to change that unless we completely sealed the borders. Which I don't understand why we didn't do."

Yeah, I couldn't understand that, either. How hard is it to seal a border? The East Germans, Soviets, Albanians, etc. managed to do it quite efficiently for several years. And they KNEW Syria and Iran weren't that friendly to the invasion!


Sometime in the future, there will be a VERY interesting recounting of the whole Iraq invasion story ....

[fat city]

Maybe if Powell had kicked De Villepin's ass after that UN debacle he'd have more creds.

[Naptowne]

Perhaps by "we" he meant the United States of America. You know, the country he spent his entire adult life serving.

I lurk on this site and have seen no reason to post in the past, but the vitriol and hatred expressed toward a great American like Colin Powell is outrageous. His comments are no different than the comments made by Condoleeza Rice last week, except for the fact that Powell actually is an expert on military strategy and the region. I am not one of the people who thinks that Iraq is a failure and a waste of time, and neither is Powell. He was simply stating a fact which is that the military strategists at the Pentagon and in the Administration did not adequately prepare for and expect the insurgency and this is supported by their own comments. The purpose of war is to impose your will on a nation through force, and having a larger invasion force and a more aggressive strategy following the collapse of Sadaam would have gone a long way toward doing just that. After all, Powell was the only military expert among the President's cabinet members. The naive ideologues like Richard Pearles and Doug Fifes who thought that everyone in Iraq was going to come out and sing kombaya with our troops are the reasons why the insurgency was able to grow and organize. We should have declared martial law and imposed strict curfews in the Sunni areas from the beginning, rather than thinking the war was over when we pulled down a statue.

People should also remember that if it wasn't for Colin Powell's hard work and foresight before 9/11 the US would not have been able to have such quick access to military bases all over south Asia to attack Afghanistan. Bush lost his to most efficient cabinet members when Powell and Ashcroft left the administration.

[Pittsburg Phil]

Ah, Mr. Affirmative Action himself has spoken.

[Terpfen]

So why did it happen, then?

I wish I knew. No one ever bothered to dig up the reasons for the change.

[LibLieSlayer]

I used to think differently, but I now KNOW the truth. Powell was a BIG mistake!

LLS

[Renegade]

Powell? Who's he ?( sarc.)

[manwiththehands]

Powell is running out of things to say.

[ac-rep]

I agree it's all about context.I spent a year in Iraq as a machine gunner for a combat engineering unit and I found the people there pretty much pacified.Sure we hit allot of IED"S,but fire fights were very rare.The problem is that the press doesn't have the security infrastructure to tell the full story even if they wanted to.There's no reporters roaming the streets of Bayji,ramagen, tikrit,al-synia,there are no ABC news beuraus in Sammara,they all huddle down in the green zone and regurgitate lopsided casualty figures back to the states and call it news.You always see "soldier killed" as a banner headline for instance,but when have you ever seen "insurgent" killed make it to the top story? The fact is Iraq is a COUNTRY more than just the city of Baghdad.How would we like to be defined as a country just by the crime in New york or Los Angeles?

[weegee]

Y'know, your words might carry more weight if you had posted more than 2 dozen times in 2 years on FR.

[gafusa]

Option two. No Iran, No Syria, No problem.